A second training program that has proved effective is the Communication Skills Training program (CST), which consisted of 16 one-hour sessions geared towards providing students with both conceptual knowledge and behavioral practice of self-disclosure and empathy. The training program, itself, was a structured educational course. Through didactic and experiential training, participants gained relevant conceptual knowledge as well as behavioral practice of both self-disclosure and empathetic response. Results of an experimental study, testing the effects of CST on empathy development, found that the program participants' levels of self-disclosure and empathetic response were higher than the control group participants' at both posttest analysis and at the 5-month follow-up. The study sample consisted of Southwestern adolescents randomly assigned to a training (n=22) and control group (n=21) (Avery, Rider, & Haynes-Clements, 1981).